74
entadriveriscrossing
WashingtonSquarePark
with her bag of groceries when sheseesthisappealingbench
anddecidestotakea short rest. Thebuildingwhere shehas
lived,alwaysalone,forthe past 52yearsisonlyfiveblocks
away, butshestopstorestmore oftennowat 77. Butshemoves
quickly;shecan’t helpit.She still hasherdancer’s momentum.
Herspineis unbent,thanks to thesepast 52yearsofwalking
inManhattanratherthanhunchinginthedriver’s seat ofa car,
bendingtohaulbagsoutof a trunkorbackseat.
Instead,shekeepswhat she needswithherinherblackbag:
theday’s newspapers,and, if she’s goingtothelibrary,the
booksandlettersshe’s using for hergenealogyresearch.Sheis
workingona bookabout her family,tracingthelinefrom
Salem,Massachusetts,inthe 1600stothemiddleofthe20th
SENTA DRIVER
WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK
century, finding the stories of her ancestors: naturally reclusive,
quietly influential people like herself. To think that her schol-
ar’s life is the one she sought to avoid when, at 25, she chose to
join a dance company rather than pursue a master’s degree in
medieval studies. So much sitting, she’d thought then.
The dance company she founded ended in 1991, and she’s
had several careers since then. But it’s still the company that
she thinks of as her child. When she became a nurse in the
neonatal ICU, it wasn’t because she loved babies, though she
isn’t opposed to them. It had been the work itself—close to the
seat of potential, exploring the edges of what can be done. The
same thing she’d done with dance.
She looks for that energy everywhere, every day. She sees
friends occasionally, and family even more rarely. When she
seeks connection, she finds it, as she always has, in perfor-
mance. Later this month, she’ll see the singers from Roomful
of Teeth reshape the air in a room and feel it again: the thrill of
seeing people test the limits of what can be done by the human
body and the human soul. For today, though, she looks forward
to carrying her heavy bag home, removing the gray fedora, tak-
ing a book down from the shelves that surround her, and get-
ting on with her work. e m i ly gouldAdditional reporting by Savannah Smith